


The High Road

by ultraradiance (greisful)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, Humour, One direction AU, Road Trip, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7005136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greisful/pseuds/ultraradiance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Harry Styles and Niall Horan had been best friends ever since they were children. Harry kept Niall from getting beat up and Niall provided Harry with his daily dose of sarcasm and kept his best friend from making stupid decisions.</p>
  <p>Both of them had taken part-time jobs at working at an animal shelter run by Harry's aunt when they're sent on a trip to Scotland to deliver five stray puppies that they'd found in a box. As it turned out, stray puppies weren't the only thing that they'd picked up on the road.</p>
  <p>An AU where Harry and Niall have nothing better to do than deliver puppies, Niall has the bladder of an elderly man, and Pat and Lucy have a very aggressive friendship and end up traveling with strangers.</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	The High Road

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  banner by seeingred @ 1DFF proboards

Harry had told Niall to go to the bathroom, he had told the idiot to go and pee or do whatever he needed to do before the trip started but the dumbass hadn't listened to him. The two of them had barely been on the road for an hour before Niall started whining about having to pee.

Harry had only agreed to stop driving because Niall threatened to wet himself right there and then if Harry didn't.

Harry hit the breaks so fast that had it not been for the seatbelt, Niall would've gotten a concussion and cracked the window thanks to the momentum that thrust him forward.

He had burst out of the car and turned around to pee while Harry yelled abuse from the drivers seat.

Five minutes later and the two were on the road again with a much happier Niall sitting as a passenger.

"I told you to pee before we left!" Harry exclaimed as he sped down the straight road at one hundred and ten kilometres per hour.

"I didn't have to go then," Niall replied. It was the answer of a small child given to an annoyed parent. But it was no surprise really, Niall's stupid bladder was common knowledge to anyone who knew him. Harry had lost count of the amount of times he had been cockblocked because Niall couldn't keep his piss to himself.

And so they kept driving, the beautiful scenery doing nothing to lighten Harry’s sour mood, the sky looked like it was might pour at any second anyhow. An hour later Niall was complaining about having to pee yet again.

"What are you even excreting?! You haven't eaten or drank anything!" Harry exclaimed.

"I just have to pee," Niall replied.

"Are you sure you're not diabetic?" Harry asked, glancing at his friend out of the corner of his eye. The St. Bernard puppies sitting in the back seat yipped as if wondering the same thing.

"I've checked plenty of times, I'm not diabetic, I just have a really weak bladder," the blonde haired boy replied.

"I wonder what it's like watching horror movies with you," Harry mused out loud.

"I'd rather not find out," Niall replied pointedly. Harry grinned at him. He took one hand off of the wheel of the car and turned on the AC before running it through his ridiculously long brown hair.

"You're gonna have to hold your pee until we get to a petrol station mate, I'm not stopping again," Harry said. Niall had no choice but to agree to the terms and sat with his legs crossed the rest of the ride.

The silence was occasionally interrupted by the puppies in the back seat of the car harmonizing but other than that, the only sound that was being emitted was Niall's legs crossing and uncrossing themselves.

Harry glanced at his rear view mirror repeatedly, keeping a close eye on the puppies. They weren't newborns but he still didn't trust them to have control over their own excretory system. That was the only reason why he hadn't been crazy about taking them on the long drive, he was worried that they would piss all over his brand new seats. Harry was not particularly titillated by the idea of having to breathe in the smell of dog shit every few seconds.

That and it would stain and cost him money that he didn't have.

Niall was completely unconcerned about anything other than wetting his own pants, and it was admittedly slightly alarming having to drive with an overgrown child as shotgun who could burst at any minute. Harry was ready to pull the car over and jump out if the situation called for it.

Eventually, a petrol station did appear, and Harry smoothly pulled up next to a pump while Niall jumped out before the car had stopped properly and ran for the convenience store. While Niall relieved himself, Harry filled up and paid for his gas. He decided to let the puppies out for a few minutes so that they could stretch their legs and let go of anything that they had been holding in before setting off again.

The little brown, black, and white puppies jumped around and let out barks of excitement as they took in their surroundings. They all turned towards Harry, who they had already recognized as mum, and wagged their tails. Harry bent down and scratched each of their heads and patted some of them before digging around in the trunk for a ball that he could throw around.

He tossed the ball lightly and watched all five puppies scamper after it and bring it back to him. Niall eventually made his way out of the store, arms laden with junk food, and Harry was about to ask how long Niall was packing for but never started after hearing,

"Lucille I will fucking cut you!"

"Bitch you're fucking Jewish, doesn't that go against one of the Ten Commandments?"

"It goes against both of our religions stupid," the other girl snapped.

Harry and Niall looked at each other, slightly worried that they were about to get caught in the middle of a brawl. Niall threw his food at the foot of the front side and then helped Harry gather up the puppies, who seemed to think that this was some kind of game that they were playing, and put them in the car.

Harry chased around the last puppy while Niall buckled himself up, but no matter how long he ran after the stupid mutt, the little dog kept slipping away from him. He stopped in his tracks when the puppy stopped at the feet of some very girly legs. Harry snatched up the dog and straightened his back.

The girl with the blonde hair and a hat on was staring at him with an amused look on her face, it looked as if she was forcing herself to keep a straight face. Harry turned slightly red, and coughed into one hand, the puppy waving his legs in the air in the other.

“Sorry about that,” Harry said and was about to run off to his car when the girl standing next to the blonde one spoke up. Her short hair was spiked, and her eyes wide as she stared at the little puppy in Harry’s hands, her freckles spreading across her entire hand as she grinned.

“Oh my gosh, is it a he or a she?” she asked.

“It’s a he.”

“He is so precious,” she said, and without waiting for any permission from Harry, took the dog out of his hands and brought it close to her face.

“I’m sorry about my friend here,” the blonde girl said, cocking her head towards her friend who was now covering the little St. Bernard with kisses all over its head.

“I’m Pat,” she added, sticking out a hand.

“I’m-”

“You are not Pat, you’re Hypatia, stop lying to people,” the girl, who Harry assumed was Lucille, said as she made funny faces at the dog in her hands.

"I'm Harry," Harry said, shaking Pat's hand.

"Unfortunately my name is in fact Hypatia," Pat said with a sigh. "You can call me Pat or Hypatia but I prefer Pat."

"Er, okay," Harry said, he looked behind them to see if he could spot their car but the only people that seemed to have pulled up to the petrol station was Harry's car.

"Where's your ride?" he asked them, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"Our ride broke down," Pat said and blew her bangs out of her face. "I told a certain someone to put gas in the car before we left but she was convinced that we had enough until we got to a petrol station."

"Look, it seemed like we had enough, I'm sorry okay," Lucille said, joining the conversation. She handed the puppy back to Harry with a sigh.

"Why did your parents name you Hypatia?" Harry asked. It seemed like a strange name but if her parents were going for unique then Hypatia was certainly a good choice.

"They hate me," Pat replied promptly with a large smile. There was a moment of silence as Harry glanced at Lucille to see if she could help him out in the situation. Lucille however was completely engrossed with the puppy still in her hands.

"Uh, really?" Harry asked dumbly and winced as the words left his mouth. Out of all of the offensive things that he could've said, this was the one he landed on.

"No, but it's the only conclusion that I can come to to explain why they named me something so ridiculous," Pat said with a sigh. Harry looked around to Niall but his friend could offer no help except to shrug his shoulders and hold out his hands.

"Do you guys need any help?" Harry asked.

"We do actually! Could you help us out by driving us back to our car once we buy some gas. I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea of dragging around our suitcases for another two hours," Pat said and it was only then that Harry took in the many suitcases that were sitting next to the two girls and the rucksacks on their backs.

“I should warn you however that our back seat is taken up by puppies so you’ll have to put up with that if you want a ride,” Harry said.

“There’s more?” Lucille asked, her face lighting up in excitement.

“Erm, about four more of them,” Harry replied but she had already run off and thrown open the door to the back seat of the car.

“Thanks for helping me pack up our stuff,” Pat muttered to herself with a roll of her eyes. Harry grabbed some of the suitcases sitting around her and helped her move them to her car.

“As you probably figured out by now, Lucy loves animals,” Pat said as Harry lifted some of the suitcases and strapped them to the top of the car. “She asked her parents for an animal when she was little but they said no and so she’s decided to live vicariously through other people’s pets.”

“I’m sure she could adopt one,” Harry said.

“She would but her parents said that if she’s going to adopt a dog it should be a proper one and something from the pound implies that there’s something wrong with it,” Pat said with a frown. She passed Harry a suitcase and looked down at Lucy who knocked on the window and held up two of the puppies on either side of her face.

“That’s . . . really fucked up,” Harry finally said, and he didn’t care if he was being rude.

“Yeah, they mean well but it’s just that sometimes, they don’t realise when they’re in the wrong,” Pat said. Once all of the luggage from the girls had been shoved into the car and strapped to its various outer flat surfaces, Pat and Harry got in the car.

Pat leaned forward from the back, her face appearing next to Harry’s, the brim of her hat knocking him in the face as she did so. She pulled it back a little bit and flashed Harry a grin, her blue eyes sparkling as he started the car and pulled out of the station.

"Turn left and keep going until you see a dusty road, and then turn down it and keep driving until you see a car sitting on the side of the road," Pat said. And Harry followed her instructions, but it seemed that no matter how many times he drove up and down that dirt road, no car appeared.

Harry had no doubt that Pat was telling the truth but her car had disappeared and he had no idea what to do about it. She let out a frustrated sigh as Lucy became more and more panicked.

"We left it on the side of the road, how did it disappear?!" Lucy cried out, her face pressed against the window while Pat slammed her face against the back of Harry's seat over and over.

"Maybe it got towed," Niall said meekly. He quickly quieted down when Lucy glared at him from her seat.

"Got towed where? We're in the middle of nowhere, where could my car get towed to?!" she cried out, her voice rising in pitch with each second that passed.

"Okay, so maybe it got stolen who knows," Niall muttered to himself and slid down in his seat. He was wishing he could get swallowed up by the seat in the next few seconds. He was not built to deal with homicidal girls, he didn't want to die young.

Harry however was more adept, he had grown up with his older sister around, he had some idea of what not to say in a disaster. He pulled over the car and turned his attention to the two girls in the back.

"I told you one of us should've stayed with the car while the other went and got some gas!" Pat exclaimed.

"And what, gotten killed?!" Lucy exclaimed.

"Okay, enough! There's no point in arguing and blaming each other about who's wrong and what you should've done instead," Harry yelled before the two girls could go any further.

"Look, we don't know where your car is, we'll keep driving until we get to a town and then you call the police or a tow company and see if you can find anything," Niall chipped in. There was a beat of tense silence as Pat and Lucy glared at each other, and then Pat sagged in defeat and Lucy let out the tension that had built up in her shoulders.

"That sounds like the best option," Lucy said. Harry nodded and quickly got them back on the main road again. The puppies didn't seem to sense any of the tension in the air and instead scratched at the windows and whined for fresh air as Harry flew down the road.

Niall kept his mouth shut about having to pee, though Harry could see how badly his friend needed to go from the pinched look on his face. When the four of them finally did arrive at a town, Harry didn't bother finding a car park and instead pulled over on the road. Everyone tumbled out and split themselves up into groups.

Niall offered to go with the girls and see if he could help, Harry was tasked with taking the dogs around for a walk so that they could stretch their legs. Niall, Lucy, and Pat were gone for half an hour and when they finally got back, their faces conveyed the good news that they hadn't received.

"How did it go?" Harry asked.

"Not well," Lucy said morosely.

"What happened?"

"Well, we called the nearest tow company and asked them if they'd recently picked up a car. We described it down to the last stain on the back seat but they said no," Lucy began.

"So then I asked if there was a local police that I could talk to and we went to see them. We told them that our car was missing and they told us they would see what they could do," Pat said.

"We gave them our phone numbers so that they could contact us if they found anything," Lucy said.

"There's nothing else they can do?" Harry asked as one of the puppies started tugging at what it could grab of his jeans.

"Nope, so I guess we're stuck here until we can get a ride out of this place," Lucy replied and kicked at a pebble in frustration, her hands buried in the back pockets of her jeans

"I think it'll be best if we find somewhere to sleep for the day and then figure out what we're going to do tomorrow," Niall said and Harry couldn't have agreed more.

The four of them asked the locals they could find to see if they knew of a place where they could spend the night. And after much walking around, they finally found the small inn that they'd been searching for. It wasn't much, the place was old, the front door seemed like it was seconds away from falling off its hinges and the inside wasn't much better.

The wallpaper peeled off of the walls, the ceiling was missing pieces of plaster, and it didn't look like anyone had replaced the furniture in the last few hundred years. But it was clean and that was better than nothing.

Harry and Niall checked into one room while Pat and Lucy checked in another. With their new room keys in their pockets, they picked up the bags with their bathroom utilities, pajamas, and a change of clothes for the next day.

"It's too bad about Pat and Lucy," Niall said as he got into his twin bed.

"Well, I was thinking …" Harry started guiltily as he took off his shoes. Niall stopped moving under the covers and turned to stare at his friend with the edges of his mouth turned down.

"Please don't tell me that you're thinking of doing something stupidly nice."

"What if we invited them on our trip?" Harry said.

"They could be serial killers for all we know, we don't know anything about them," Niall pointed out.

"We survived today with them, I'm sure we can survive the rest of the trip. Besides, it looks like I'll finally have someone to play with the puppies besides me," Harry added, giving Niall a pointed look.

"I am not a dog person," Niall replied defensively.

“You work at an animal shelter,” Harry pointed out.

“That does not mean that I’m a dog person.”

"Come on, they don't have another ride, they're stuck here until someone can get a car up here to pick them up," Harry said.

"Not our problem," Niall said firmly, and turned his back on Harry, ending the conversation where it was. Harry sighed and took off his shoes and socks before crawling into bed as well. Niall was great but he wasn't always in the mood for helping out people, this happened to be one of those times.

He would try and change his friends mind in the morning but there was nothing that he could do if his friend said no then he couldn't exactly go against it.

Harry slept like a Medusa's victim the entire night and woke up in the morning with his stomach growling and his mouth smelling like straight up ass. He almost fell out of bed when he woke up, a thump and groan from the other side of the room told him that Niall hadn't been as great at avoiding the rude awakening as Harry had.

The two of them washed as much as they could in the small bathroom and then put their clothes back on from yesterday. They left the room as cleanly as they could, Niall's arms overflowing with bags and clothes as Harry handed the room keys back to the person at the front desk on the way out.

Harry had hoped to run into the girls on the way out but no matter how many times he glanced behind him, he caught no sight of them. Niall suggested they find somewhere to eat before heading out. The only place was a small diner that Harry had never heard of before in his life, and so with the only other option being to drive for hours before coming across another place to eat, Niall and Harry braved the possibility of bad food and ate.

Inside, the girls that Harry had hoped to run into at the small inn had already beat him and Niall to the diner and were eating breakfast. Lucy was the one that spotted the two of them and waved them over. Niall ordered breakfast while Harry took a seat next to Lucy and waited.

"So how did you two sleep?" Harry asked as he looked around at the old, slightly chipped glossy tables that lined the walls of the diner. He slid into the booth and sat back to see how comfy the place was. He wouldn't decorate his home like the diner, but it wasn't a bad place, and it didn't look like you'd catch a disease from eating the food.

"Brilliant!"

"Ugh," Pat replied, her expression the opposite of Lucy's chipper one.

"They weren't the most comfortable of beds," Harry admitted.

"Really, I slept just fine," Lucy said.

"Of course you did, you can sleep anywhere," Pat replied with a scowl and shoveled more eggs into her mouth, her cheeks bulging out like a guinea pigs.

"Do you guys have a plan?" Harry asked, folding his hands on the chipped table before him.

"No, we're stuck here until someone can come and pick us up," Lucy said with a sigh and took a sip of her milkshake.

"Alright, here's your food," Niall announced and placed a plate of eggs in front of Harry before taking a seat across his friend and digging into his own omelette. Harry took a few bites of his egg but couldn't go far before dragging Niall out of his seat and away from the girls.

"This better be important enough to drag a man away from his food," Niall grumbled, bits of omelette stuck to his cheeks.

"Come on, let them come with us," Harry whispered.

"No."

"They have nowhere to go, what if something happened to them here? And besides, who even says they're going to agree to go with us?" Harry pleaded.

"Harry, we don't even know if we'll get along with them!"

"It'll be a learning experience."

"You really want them to come with us?" Niall asked, doubt leaking into his voice.

"Yes! Think of it this way, it could turn into one of those adventures you read about in books," Harry said, throwing an arm around Niall and holding out his arm as he stared off into space.

"They're called fiction for a reason," Niall pointed out, "what are you even looking at?"

"I was making a point, stop being so negative and actually look on the bright side of things, you might actually enjoy yourself," Harry said. "I'd say you've made some good friends with the loo."

"You're a thorn in my side, why am I even friends with you?" Niall grumbled.

"Because without me, your ass would be done for. I am literally the only reason you weren't beat up in school," Harry replied with a dimpled grin and practically skipped his way back over to his breakfast.

He clapped his hands loudly and rubbed them together before diving into his question.

"I've spoken to Niall about this, and the two of us—"

"He thinks," Niall interrupted.

"Fine, I think that, if you guys wanted, it would be really great if you guys came with us on our trip," Harry said. Lucy and Pat exchanged looks and stared at Harry as if he were crazy.

"Where are you two even going?" Lucy asked.

"Scotland!" Harry exclaimed. Lucy and Pat turned their backs on Harry and Niall and began talking in hushed whispers. They glanced back at the boys as they talked and kept on whispering. After five minutes of talking, Pat and Lucy turned back to Harry and Niall.

"I'm not sure about this," Pat said.

"It doesn't sound like the best idea, I mean we don't even know you," Lucy added.

"If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead," Niall said.

"You get to play with the puppies if you go," Harry said, clasping his large hands behind his back.

"This sounds like a very good idea," Lucy said. "Oh come on, we were gonna go on vacation anyway," Lucy added when she saw the uncertainty on Pat's face.

"You gotta learn to live on the edge Hypatia," Harry prodded with a grin.

"Fine, I'll go, but you stay away from any edges in that car of yours or I'll kill you," she added, pointing at Harry.

"Brilliant! Finish your breakfast and let's hit the road guys, we've got a long way to go!" Once everyone had finished their breakfast and made their way towards Harry’s car, Lucy turned to Harry and asked him,

“Where did you get all of those puppies anyway?”

“My aunt runs an animal shelter, and Niall and I volunteer there sometimes. We were walking to the shelter one day and we just happened to come across this box full of these little guys and we just picked them up and took them to the shelter. She told us that one of my relatives needed some pets up in Scotland and Niall and I volunteered to drive the puppies up there for her,” Harry replied with a shrug.

“And you didn’t take a plane, because?” Pat asked.

“Driving is more fun, it’s not like I had anything better to do,” Harry replied.

“Where are you two headed? Harry and I can drop you off on the way,” Niall said.

“We’re supposed to be on vacation but as you can probably see, that’s not really going too well. We’re just going to let the wind carry us wherever it wants to, or in this case, wherever you guys want to,” Lucy said, throwing her arms up into the sky as a slight breeze blew through.

The day had started out unusually sunny, everyone’s jackets had been tied around their waists and their sleeves rolled up. The small town looked cheerier in the sunlight and a lot less like a horror movie ghost town.

The car was cold, but thanks to the sun, it would be boiling in absolutely no time, everyone piled into their seats, Niall in shotgun while Lucy kept three puppies on her lap at the same time in the backseat and Pat tried to keep the small things from licking her face. The engine purred to life and Harry got them on the road and out of the small town that they had crashed in in no time, the scenery quickly turning to that of lush fields and trees.


End file.
